The present invention relates to bathroom towel warmers and more particularly to improved hot air towel warmer configurations intended for use with large area plush bath towels and bath sheets whose size and material volume increase the difficulty of achieving sufficient air passage through the towel to assure heating adequately within the time of a typical bath or shower.
It is Applicants desire to provide in a bath or shower area a compact, esthetically attractive device capable of achieving rapid, uniform heating of articles such as clothing or towels and the like as a preliminary to use. A primary objective of the present invention is to assure adequate air flow through increased depth towel fabric by using readily available low cost blowers oriented in tandem. It is a further objective of the present invention to provide a physical embodiment including a means for removing excess adsorbed moisture during the warming cycle to achieve dehumidification.
Experience has shown that towel warmers in close proximity to a tub or shower have an increased satisfaction factor. In order to be as unobtrusive and aesthetically pleasing as possible it is preferable to minimize the depth dimension of a towel warmer such that it protrudes as little as possible into the room. In some bathroom designs it is even desired to embed a permanent towel warmer in the wall between the support studs which in the U.S. are on standard 16 inch centers. A problem arises with shallow depth towel warmers used in conjunction with large, plush towels particularly those referred to as oversized bath towels and even more so for bath sheets in that the resulting vertical height of the inserted towel increases to the point that the flow of air through the towel is restricted, reducing the towel warmers ability to quickly and uniformly heat the towel and increasing the possibility that the heater coil will overheat due to inadequate air flow.
Experience has also shown that all towels contain some degree of adsorbed moisture the amount of which varies depending on multiple variables including but not limited to the local humidity, the storage enclosure, the time duration since the towel was laundered and dried and whether the using individual selected a fresh towel or elected a common practice of reusing a towel used on a previous occasion. What is further disclosed here is a physical embodiment and associated control system to increase the users satisfaction by reducing the amount of moisture adsorbed on the towel, that is by dehumidifying the towel during heating.